She is walking down the street, her arms swinging by her side.
No, hang on, that was the other world, the one when people were defined by gender, by pronouns assigned to them at birth.
Was this person – this lively child with mischief and magic in her eyes – was she a she? Did she look like a she? Did she feel like a she? What did it mean anyway, in this world, in the one that we had created?
It had become impossible to tell.
This gender stuff, the stuff that seemed so important in the other world, the one that we inhabited before that night. You know the night to which I refer. That one. The stuff of legends, of folk tales, of stories upon stories. The night when the pirates came, the night of rum and whisky, the night when dreams were spoken aloud and scrawled onto a long sheet of white paper. Spoken aloud, and written down, in a room with a powerful magical charge which meant that the world we imagined became our reality.
That night.
The world we live in now is one where gender is fluid. It has not gone. We are not gender free. Some boys are boys and some boys are girls and some boys are girl-boys or boy-girls. And girls are girls or boys or girl-boys or boy-girls. And some children are none of these and some are all of them. And some change from day to day and week to week. And the same for adults. The labels do not determine how someone looks, or what they can do, or how they can play, or anything else really. It’s more of an inside thing.
In the world we live in now, tuning into our uniqueness and expressing ourselves in our wholeness, authentically and unapologetically – that is what guides us. That is what matters. There are no expectations assigned at birth, no manipulation of the soul of a child, no steering down a pre-determined path. No. Now, the blessings we give to children at birth are that they will grow up to be themselves, to follow their own paths, to find their soul’s purpose. The goal of parenting – which we more commonly describe as partnering or caring or loving – is to support the children, all children, to stay in alignment with their own soul.
And so, this child, the one who is walking down the street, with arms swinging by their side. This lively child, with mischief and magic in their eyes.
Where are they going? This child.
To a den, to a treehouse, to a shop? To a village meeting, to hang with a friend? To head into the woods for some solitude? To play football, to make doughnuts, to write?
Where are they going? This child. This boy-girl or girl-boy or girl or boy or none or all of these? This child.
It was impossible to tell.
Impossible, now, in this world, after that night when the pirates came.
This story was written on one of our Soul Fire Writing Retreats, where we focussed on using stories for activism. The full collection is available at: https://writeonchangemakers.com/2023/07/03/soul-fire-short-stories-new-collection-launched/